Reed College
Reed College

History Department

Thesis Handbook for History Majors

Prepared for the History department by Margot Minardi and Radhika Natarajan
August 2018; updated May 2023

Congratulations on reaching the beginning of your senior year! The thesis marks the culmination of your academic career at Reed. It’s an opportunity to build on what you’ve learned over the past three years in order to research and write about a historical question that is intellectually meaningful for you. This guide is designed as an overview to the thesis process, with some advice on how to make your thesis experience as successful and enjoyable as possible. We suggest reading through this guide at the beginning of thesis year and then returning to specific sections as you progress throughout the year.

Table of Contents

Basics

Units: Thesis is a year-long course that counts for two units.

Length: The thesis typically consists of three substantive chapters, an introduction, conclusion, and supplementary materials (acknowledgements, bibliography, etc). A rough guideline for total length is 60–80 pages.

Format: The Library and Registrar ask that you format your thesis in a very specific way with regard to the order of contents, pagination, margins, etc. For this purpose, Information Technology creates and maintains a senior thesis template. Your thesis will not be accepted if it is not in the right format, and former thesis students agree: the earlier you use the template, the easier formatting becomes!

Advising assignments: The department asks you to submit a thesis preference form at the end of junior year indicating two potential topics and assigns advisors based on shared interests and faculty availability.

The Committee: Your committee (also known as the orals board) will consist of an advisor and first reader assigned by the department, a second reader assigned from History and Social Sciences faculty, and an outside reader of your choice. The fourth member of the committee must come from outside HSS; all faculty in other divisions and certain College staff members are eligible to serve in this role. Usually, the fourth member is asked after the orals calendar is published as faculty availability during orals week often determines participation.

Calendar: Thesis is a year-long process, and you will be working with multiple calendars: college-wide, division-wide, department-wide, and individual deadlines determined between you and your advisor. Each year, the department administrator will produce a calendar that has all of the important HSS deadlines in one place. The History Department has one additional deadline, requiring you to submit a draft of one chapter of your thesis to your advisor and first reader around the end of your first thesis semester; the exact deadline will be announced at the beginning of the semester.

HSS Draft Deadline: A complete first draft is due in the eighth week of instruction of your second thesis semester. You will submit it via the HSS Thesis Moodle, and it will be read by your advisor and first reader. You will receive comments and be expected to revise for your final draft.

Thesis Extravaganza! In the spring semester, after the draft deadline for Fall/Spring Seniors and before the final draft is due, the history department gathers to celebrate all seniors and the work they have accomplished. Seniors give a brief presentation on their thesis--the research, the argument, and the significance–and the audience asks questions..

Final Draft Deadline: You are responsible for turning in your completed thesis by the last day of classes in your second thesis semester. Follow the instructions provided by the Registrar’s Office.

Oral Exams: The oral exam brings together you and your four committee members for a 90-minute conversation about your thesis. It is your chance to talk about the significance of your research and for your committee members to ask questions. A good way to prepare for the exam is to write an “elevator pitch” summarizing your argument and its significance. You might also reflect on how you came to the topic, what is significant about your research, and surprising conclusions. Remember that your committee members are not necessarily experts in your topic or perhaps even your discipline. Consider what they might want to know. At the end of the conversation, you will be asked to leave the room, while the committee discusses your thesis. You will be invited back to hear whether or not you passed. In the time between your oral exam and final submission, you will be given a chance to fix minor grammatical and formatting errors. 

Submitting the Final Draft: After you have made the final corrections to your thesis, you must have your thesis checked and approved by your advisor before turning it into the library. Consult the library’s thesis page for more detailed information about final submission. . 

Grades/Assessment: Your advisor will assign the final grade for your thesis in consultation with the members of the thesis committee.

Process

Your thesis may well be the most challenging and the most rewarding aspect of your academic experience at Reed. What makes the thesis exciting--but also daunting--is that you have greater independence in preparing your thesis than you do in any other academic class. Ideally, your thesis will reflect your particular historical interests and your voice and vision as a writer and thinker. Since the thesis is an individual project, the process will vary based on the inclinations of every individual student. That said, it is not a process that you should go through alone. Given the length and complexity of the thesis, you might have to adjust some of the work habits you’ve developed during your time at Reed in order to make them suitable for the unique demands of a thesis. You should talk to your advisor early and often not only about the content of your thesis but also the process of producing it. This section draws on the experiences of previous students and their advisors in order to address some common questions about the thesis process.

Finding a Topic

Your first major decision in the thesis process will be developing a viable topic for your research. While you might have some ideas about what you’re interested in at the start of your senior year, you will likely spend the first few weeks of the first term clarifying and refining your topic. 

What if I’m not sure what I want to write about?

The wide latitude you have for coming up with a thesis topic can be overwhelming. You want to find a topic that will sustain your interest for an entire school year. Reflect back on your previous coursework: what moments in history have most piqued your interest? If you’ve read a historical book or article that you found especially engrossing, reflect on what it was that drew you to it. How might you emulate what that historian did in your own work? Some students find it helpful to generate thesis topics rom their extra-curricular interests. If you are an avid cyclist, for instance, you might look into the history of bicycling in a country you’ve studied in one of your classes. Think not only about the subject areas that interest you, but also the sources and methods that you like to use. Do you enjoy working with visual evidence? A thesis drawing on photography, maps, magazine advertisements, or book illustrations might be appealing to you. Do you like the “detective work” aspect of historical research, or do you prefer to immerse yourself in a limited number of more readily accessible sources? Ask your advisor how to frame your topic such that it would lead you to whatever kind of reading and research is more likely to capture your interest. 

How narrow or wide should my topic be?

There’s no simple way to answer this question, but many students are surprised to find how narrow a thesis topic turns out to be. You might come in with an interest, say, in “women in World War II,” but your advisor is likely to push you to refine and narrow that topic so that it is precise and focused enough that you can feasibly answer it with one school year’s worth of research. Be aware that while we often talk about thesis “topics,” what you really want as a researcher is a question or set of questions that can guide your research and lead you to make a historical argument. For instance, a viable research question for someone interested in women in World War II might be something like “How did women’s participation in the French Resistance shape their understanding of gender roles in the postwar period?” Not only does this narrow the scope of the research considerably, but one can conceivably imagine different scholars coming up with different answers to this question--thus this question would seem to invite a historical argument, rather than simply a recitation of facts.

Should I choose a topic that matches my advisor’s area of expertise?

While the interests and expertise of the History Department’s faculty are wide-ranging, there are many historical subfields for which we don’t have specialists on staff. History majors have written theses in those subfields, often with success. You should be aware that if you choose to write on a topic far from your advisor’s area of expertise, the nature of the advice you receive from your advisor will likely be different than if you choose something closer to their area of specialty. In the former case, your advisor should be able to guide you in conceiving the project in general terms and in planning and revising your writing, but they will be less likely to offer you specific bibliographic or historiographical advice. This could be a reasonable option if you are willing to work independently to get to know the field you want to explore, but if you are looking for more expert guidance, you might try to find a way to get your own interests to mesh with your advisor’s expertise. Remember that your advisor need not be the only faculty member whom you consult for advice. You might find professors with relevant expertise in other departments. An informal conversation with someone in a different field can often send you in new and interesting directions.

How, if at all, should my topic relate to the coursework I’ve done?

There is no rule here, but ideally your thesis research will build on what you have studied previously at Reed. For some students, the thesis might be very closely related--for instance, a further development of research begun in the junior seminar or in a paper for a course. For others, the topic might tie to previous coursework but move it into a different context: for instance, if you enjoyed researching salmon fisheries in the twentieth-century Pacific Northwest, you might then apply some of your experience in maritime and environmental history to a thesis on cod-fishing in the seventeenth-century Atlantic. Be aware that if you choose a topic that bears no relation to work you have done previously, you will have to spend considerable time getting up to speed in the relevant history and historiography.

Conducting research

An important part of the research for your history thesis is engagement with the existing scholarship, or historiography. Every work of scholarship builds on prior work. Reading secondary sources helps to provide the historical context for your thesis; as you encounter how other historians have approached your topic, secondary sources will also help you develop the specificity and significance of your own argument. The best place to begin your secondary source research is with the Reed Library-Summit catalog and the major historical databases (America: History and Life for U.S. and Canadian history and Historical Abstracts for all other areas of the world). If you are not sure how to use these resources, ask your advisor or consult with a librarian. Be creative with your searches, and come up with several keywords that relate to your topic, including terms from the period that might not be used today. For instance, if you want to write about food culture in British India, try searching for “memsahibs,” “cookery” or “curry,” in addition to  “food culture.” Once you get started with a few secondary sources, you can use the footnotes and bibliographies in those materials to guide you to other sources that might be useful. If you keep seeing the same books and articles cited in whatever you’re reading, it’s a good indication that those sources are key to the field you’re studying and therefore worth a look.

Most students, especially those who know the languages pertinent to their areas of study, will also make use of primary sources in their research. When seeking primary sources, or material contemporary to the period you are studying, consider both what is available to you and what questions you can answer with the material you find. English language cookbooks might help you find out what kinds of foods the British ate in India, but they might not tell you about how British tastes affected the agricultural production of Indian peasants. Maintaining a dialogue between your sources and your research question will help you make decisions about the sources you need and those you can overlook. Approaches to research are likely to vary from field to field and from topic to topic, as the kinds of materials that are appropriate in one area might not be in others. Be sure to ask your advisor how best to find relevant material in your subfield. 

Managing information and citing appropriately

Responsible historical scholarship requires detailed, accurate citation of all of your sources. At one level, proper citation matters so that you will avoid plagiarism, which includes both using another author’s words as your own and lifting information, ideas, or frameworks from someone else’s work without proper attribution. By citing responsibly, you offer due acknowledgment to the people whose work you relied upon in order to do your own scholarship. Citing your sources is also important to the readers of your thesis, who will want to know where you got your information. Indeed, a good question to ask yourself as you’re preparing citations is, “will my readers be able to replicate my research based on the citation information I’ve provided?” If your answer is no, then you need to provide more precise information.

Historians follow the “notes and bibliography” style in the Chicago Manual of Style (see Resources section below for more information). Your history thesis should include footnotes (i.e. notes that appear at the bottom of the page, not at the end of the chapter or entire work), as well as a complete bibliography at the end of the entire thesis. It is conventional in historical scholarship to restart footnote numbers at the beginning of each chapter and to separate primary and secondary sources in the bibliography. If you are not certain how to format footnotes or a bibliography in your word processor, talk to CUS. If you are not certain about proper citation practices for historians, talk to your advisor. 

While many people think of the bibliography as something that you write at the end of the project, it is easiest to cite properly if you have organized your research well from the beginning. One of the biggest challenges in researching your thesis is keeping track of your findings and sources. The informal note-taking practices that many students use for writing term papers will not often work for a project that stretches over eight months and might involve dozens of sources. You might find a source in October that you don’t actually write about until March. You cannot rely on your memory here; you need to develop a note-taking system that will enable you to access information long after you first find it. Some students like to use software specially designed for managing research of this nature, such as Zotero (see Resources section). Other students do well maintaining their notes in Word or Google docs. Generally, keeping your notes in digital form is preferable to taking handwritten notes because the text-search functions in word processors and databases allow you to find material more easily. 

Wherever you store your notes, be sure you clearly distinguish between material you have paraphrased and material you have quoted. Also be sure to record full bibliographic information for all sources you use and to clearly note where you obtained each piece of information (including references to the page number for any information or quotation). This practice is important because it will enable you to find the material easily if you need to go back and consult the original source later, and it will allow you to cite the material properly when it comes to writing up your research. 

As you write, be sure you carefully document your source material. Don’t assume that you will be able to return to your text later and fill in the citations. Tracking down a quotation or data point might prove more difficult than you expected. It only slows you down a little to cite as you write, and it will save you a lot of time and trouble in the long run. If you cannot document where you found a quotation or a piece of information, you cannot use it in your thesis.

Generating an argument

Just like nearly every paper you’ve written in your college career (including your junior seminar paper), your thesis should have an argument. Indeed, the classic oral exam question for history senior thesis writers is “what is the thesis of your thesis?” It’s OK if you can’t answer this question at the beginning of the year, but as your research develops, you and your advisor will have many conversations about what, exactly, the thesis of your thesis is.

Both originality and significance are desirable in a thesis, but that doesn’t mean that a good thesis must break entirely new ground. Often, originality in a senior thesis comes from your own unique insight as a reader of source material that others have read many times before. It can also come from creative juxtapositions of different sources. No other historian has followed precisely your path through college, so no other historian will put together the material in quite the same way as you. In thinking about how to explain the significance of your thesis, it’s helpful to think about audience. A given thesis might have different layers of significance for different audiences. For a work of historical scholarship, the most important audience is generally other historians interested in similar questions. As you craft your argument, think about what will be novel and interesting to this category of readers. Finally, bear in mind that the most significant arguments often come from a relatively focused idea. As one former thesis writer put it, “Many seniors start trying to write a book, but the thesis is really one small argument, very well supported.”

Remember that your thesis will be divided into chapters, each of which will make its own sub-argument. The argument of each of the chapters should each contribute to the argument of the thesis as a whole. There’s no rule for how many chapters your thesis has, though many students find that dividing their work into three chapters makes the project manageable. As you’re developing your argument, then, you might think about how you would divide the argument into three distinct chunks. Or, you might consider how each chapter answers a sub-question of the main question of the thesis. Some historians like to divide their material chronologically, in which case you might think about how your argument breaks down into distinct periods or moments. Others divide their material thematically, such that each chapter looks at a different dimension of a question or problem. In a thesis on food culture in British India, for instance, one chapter might answer the question, how were British recipes adapted for Indian ingredients? . Another might answer the question, how did British recipes incorporate Indian cooking techniques? And a third chapter might answer the question how did living in India change British social rituals around food consumption? Still another approach would be looking at distinct case studies (for instance, comparing two or more locations or social groups). 

The writing process

Students often ask when they should start actually writing the thesis. The short answer is that it is rarely too early to start writing, and it’s easy to put off writing for too long. Don’t assume that you can finish all the research before you start writing; there is always going to be another book to read. It’s worth remembering here that for many historians, research and writing are companion activities. Writing will very likely cause you to clarify or reframe your questions, which will then send you back to do more research. Furthermore, don’t wait to write until you know exactly what you want to say. It’s fine, even advisable, to jumpstart your writing process with some informal writing, such as a description of the most interesting source you’ve found. Some writers find it helpful to keep a “thesis journal,” where they jot down ideas as they come to mind, without worrying about whether they are perfectly articulated. This kind of low-stakes writing can help you find your way to greater clarity and insight.

Revision is absolutely crucial to the process of writing a text as long and complex as a thesis. Talk with your advisor to set up realistic personal writing goals and deadlines that both keep you on track to make the required deadlines and leave room for revision along the way. You are required by the HSS Division to submit a full draft of your thesis about eight weeks into the second term. Your advisor and your first reader will give you comments on that draft, and you will then spend the remaining weeks of the year revising your draft to respond to those comments and to make other changes that you yourself have identified as important. Revision means “seeing again,” and this final stage is an opportunity to take a step back and look at your work from a reader’s perspective. Final revisions might include conducting targeted research, reorganizing the document, refining your prose style, and reformulating your argument into its clearest and most effective form. 

Your thesis has a staying power that no other piece of work you do in college will have. All Reed theses are stored in the library (in the formidable “Thesis Tower”), and, with your permission, the library can make your thesis available online as well. Make sure your finished document is polished and professional. The library will check that you are following the template properly, and your advisor will help identify errors of fact or interpretation. But ultimate responsibility for ensuring that your thesis is a polished piece of work rests with you. You should not expect your advisor to proofread for you. Make sure that your thesis is free of typographical errors, misspellings, irregular punctuation, and other mechanical errors. If you are not adept at proofreading, get help from a friend who is. 

Finally, whatever program you use to write your thesis, be sure to back up your work on a regular basis. Every year students lose drafts and data when their computer equipment fails before they have backed up. Such losses are lamentable--and entirely avoidable. Assume your computer is going to crash tomorrow, and figure out what you are going to do today to ensure that the failure of your hard drive won’t mean the loss of your work.

Resources

There are many services on campus and online to support you as you write your thesis. Remember that in addition to your advisor, you can reach out to other faculty for advice.

Office of Academic Support: Academic Support provides specialized workshops for thesis writers, organizes thesis writing groups, and offers one-on-one thesis writing guidance. 

Computer User Services/Information Technology: IT creates the template for thesis and provides advice on formatting and computer-related problems.  If you do not have an automatic backup system on your computer, consult Computer User Services (CUS) for help in order to get one set up; do this before you lose data.

Community: While thesis is an independent research project, it does not have to be a lonely pursuit. Finding the right balance of support and solitude that works for you can make your thesis year more enjoyable and productive. In the past, seniors have formed small support groups to share work, talk about experiences with research, relationships with advisors, and other aspects of the thesis process, and the department runs optional events to bring thesis-writing seniors together as well. 

Library: Each year, one librarian serves as the History Department’s liaison to the library. This librarian can help you find sources for your thesis and advise you on the research process. This could even include the purchase of sources or database subscriptions to aid your research. More information about historical research at Reed, along with the department’s current liaison librarian, is available via the library’s online historical research guide. In addition to research, librarians can help you set up and maintain your bibliography and provide advice on Zotero and other digital tools. For more information on the support offered by the library for thesis, visit their thesis guide.

Bibliography Management: Zotero is a note-taking and bibliography tool that was developed by historians. It is free and relatively easy to use. The library often has Sotero workshops, and can also set up one-on-one appointments.

Research Grants: The history department cannot offer grants for seniors to conduct research, however there are resources on campus to which history majors can apply. History students have been very successful in applications for Initiative Grants. 

Further Guides: If you are looking for further advice about research, writing, and the proper use of sources, here are some materials recommended by History faculty: